Apples and Other Astonishments
No doubt you have heard the line attributed to that prolific apple painter, Cezanne, who said, “I want to astonish Paris with an apple!” And how astonishing his style of painting was at the time, though we take it for granted these days, I suppose. Can you imagine what it would have been like to see his mode of painting at the time though?
Have you heard of aphantasia? It was much talked about not long ago but somehow I missed the excitement.
Check out the following tweet:
This is still blowing my mind lol
— Mary (@premium__heart) February 7, 2020
Close your eyes and imagine an apple. What do you see?
I'm a 5 pic.twitter.com/fL6JpxOsZS
From The Junkee:
“It turns out that while people in team five can conceptualise things in their head, they can’t see a proper image when they close their eyes. This experience is actually a condition called aphantasia, which is characterised by a lack of functioning mind’s eye leading to an inability to visualise things mentally.”
I have to admit, I was a bit shocked. I knew that we all visualized things with greater or lesser detail, but the variance surprised me. I can close my eyes and see the apples as though they were in this photo above.
This got me thinking about how in all my writing, if there is a unifying theme, it is: how we see. I’ve written about the Andy Warhol observation about glasses, and how we all used to see so much differently before our eyes were corrected. Now our vision is more uniform, in some ways. But then, obviously, not in our mind’s eye. (Which is an interesting expression right there).
When you dream, is it like a movie? (It is for me). But if we don’t even know how we imagine, dream, or envision, what else are we missing about each other?
I do feel that when I wear my glasses vs my contact lenses, I’m a slightly different person even, if that makes sense. I see differently, react differently….
When I was writing my novel Everything Affects Everyone (which I’m sure you’ve heard enough about haha), I was very entranced with thinking about seeing and believing/belief. And honestly, there’s more to think about in that category.
So, in short, plenty more to write, to think about, to research….which is always a good place to be.
February 15, 2022
